What advantages does external assessment offer compared with internal monitoring and log-file analysis?

All services offered by Sysformance are complementary to the usual internal monitoring and performance tools. Our services are designed to detect and locate faults and problems which often are overseen by your website internal systems. As an example, an Internet user who has repeatedly unsuccessfully tried to reach your site will never be recorded in your log files.

Why doesn't Sysformance simply use a «Ping» measurement?

«Ping» packets (ICMP ECHO) are subject to special treatment by the switching centers (routers) of the Internet and the target (e.g. your web site), in the event that the packet is not blocked by your security system. a further factor is that the normal «ping» packets are extremely small. Overall, for a range of reply times, measurements with a «Ping» provide no results which are in any way comparable with the performance of your web site as experienced by a normal visitor. On the other hand the assessment made by Sysformance reflects the actual total performance (network, server) of your web site as experienced by an Internet user.

Why does veralyse/WEB/ check only a part of a web page?

Typically, the text components of web pages are of similar size and the use of these as criteria simplifies the comparison of results from other web sites. this means that the results produced by our services retain their significance over a long period, even when in time the design of the site may change (more or less illustrations/diagrams).
Further, the bandwidth needed is kept to a reasonable value and this is an important feature, particularly for those customers using an Internet access or hosting with volume-dependent charging.
Apart from these aspects, our veralyse/ACT/ service provides an option which measures a complete web page including all graphical components.

What factors influence Sysformance in their selection of the locations for their sensors?

The placing of our sensors is determined by the following criteria:

• Relevance to the area of our target market/customers (i.e. essentially, this means locations in Switzerland for Swiss websites and in Germany for German web sites).
• Locations at Internet-backbones, places which, direct or indirect, provide large populations of end users with their Internet connections. This means large target markets for the web sites of our customers.
• Long term stability and capacity for future expansion.

In particular it must be mentioned that all sensors remain under our sole control and are connected to the Internet by either a dedicated leased line or are located in a high quality hosting center. We are therefore able to offer our customers long term monitoring of their web sites from the same locations with measurements of consistently high quality. It is also important to add that we do not use «gratuitous» locations which can not offer long term availability nor reproducible results.

Why doesn't the Sysformance user-interface use «advanced» HTML elements?

The Sysformance user-interface has been particularly designed for general usage. In particular no components have been used which have the potential for creating security problems (Java, JavaScript; ActiveX, etc.) nor which require specific browser or version dependent features.

To which destinations can alarm messages be sent?

Additional to the e-mail facility, alarm signals can be sent via various pager and SMS operators (handy) in Switzerland, German and Austria. The up-to-date list of such operators is to be found here: Transmission points

The URL with the Sysformance user .interface is not available! What can one do?

We operate the interface on two computers, these are completely independent of each other and have separate connections to the Internet. If one machine cannot be reached the second can be used without problems. Naturally this is also the case if you can reach one of the machines more quickly than the other. The URL's of the two computers are:

https://admin.sysformance.com/ and https://admin2.sysformance.com/

However please do not forget that for security reasons the user-interface can only be reached with https!

Where can I get more documentation on veralyse or Nettraffic services?

Manuals for all services are available from the Sysformance office. Please understand that we will charge for larger numbers of copies, PDF files can be downloaded from our GUI servers if you would like to print out the manuals yourself.

What is the difference between the Sysformance veralyse and the Nettraffic systems?

The veralyse sensors are essentially passive devices which provide the required measurement only in response to the appropriate question from the server system. On the other hand the Nettraffic sensors are autark possessing a local data bank. This data bank contains the instructions for the supervisory programme and also serves as a puffer storage for the measurement and alarm data. They can operate independently of the central system.